Audio, network transparency and security problems

Hi.

Here's something I've run into on occasion:

  There are X terminals -- mostly stripped-down, diskless Linux boxen --
  on every desktop.  They boot off the network into a minimal
  filesystem and run XFree86.  They're all display-managed by an
  appserver, to which users log in and run a mix of GNOME and KDE
  applications.  The terminals all have properly-configured audio
  hardware.  Users' audio needs are mostly confined to system beeps and
  MP3 playback.

Surprisingly, there doesn't seem to be a painless solution to getting
network-transparent audio services working in an environment like this.

The existing major desktop audio projects -- NAS, eSound and aRts --
all seem to require that their server daemons run on the X terminals
with access control turned off for remote audio to work.  This probably
isn't acceptable security on many networks.

So, I'm wondering if there is:

-  An audio service which can transparently use the X server's
   authorization keys to authenticate its own clients, or a way of
   bludgeoning one of the above into doing so?

-  Any effort underway to integrate an audio service into, say,
   the XFree86 server?

-  Any effort underway to extend the X11 protocol to provide audio
   services?

-- Ian.